Jacquelin Magnay, who won a Walkley award in 2004 for her articles on drug use by Australian Institute of Sport cyclists, wrote a scathing column in The Daily Telegraph (UK), accusing the administrators of both football codes of allowing “insidious cheating to fester and prosper”.

“(The ACC report) shouldn't have shocked (AFL and NRL) administrators who have repeatedly turned a blind eye to what was going on under their noses,” Magnay wrote.

“For the leaders of this generation of Australian professional football supremacy have not wanted to know. Their ignorance has allowed insidious cheating to fester and prosper.

“Under their watch there has been a proliferation of nefarious activities: money-laundering, spot-fixing on matches, and players so intent on earning their next big contracts that they were risking their health by taking illegal drugs still in the research phase.”

Magnay says she was prevented from naming AFL players who had taken illicit drugs by a Supreme Court injunction taken out “a decade ago”.

Project Aperio: What Is It?

What It Examined

The market for Performance and Image Enhancing Drugs (PIEDs)

The involvement of organised criminal identities and groups in the distribution of new generation PIEDs

The use of World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) prohibited substances by professional athletes in Australia

Current threats to the integrity of professional sport in Australia.

What It Found

The investigation identified widespread use of prohibited substances including peptides, hormones and illicit drugs in professional sport.

It also found that this use has been facilitated by sports scientists, high-performance coaches and sports staff.

In some cases, players are being administered with substances that have not yet been approved for human use.

The ACC also identified organised crime identities and groups that are involved in the distribution of PIEDs to athletes and professional sports staff.

The report concluded that some coaches, sports scientists and support staff of elite athletes have orchestrated and/or condoned the use of prohibited substances.

“Under the orders of the court, I still can't reveal those names, and never will be able to. At the time the administrators claimed to be concerned about player welfare,” Magnay wrote.

“I would argue that the reputations of the club, the code, the officials were on the line and they weren't prepared to open that world to wider scrutiny.”

Speaking to Irish radio station Newstalk overnight, she said she knew of other Australian journalists who had been “subject to the same kind of intimidating tactics, not been allowed to report what’s going on”.

“The clubs have been very active in suppressing any kind of wrongdoing or suggestions of any problems and that’s allowed this problem to fester. And it’s now taken government intervention to bring (wrongdoing) to light."

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In her Telegraph column, she also excoriated rugby league, claiming administrators knew “for more than five years the existence of mafia involvement and personalities in their game … but once again the code chose to ignore the implications of those associations".

“At a time when world sport is undergoing a reputational crisis – hello cycling – the wobbly foundations of Australian professional sport are being starkly exposed,” she wrote.

“The leadership of the male football codes Down Under will now come under extraordinary pressure. The buck stops at the top.”

Asked on Newstalk about the reaction of the Australian sporting public to the ACC report, Magnay said they would be shocked after being misled for so long.

“The average Australian sporting fan is very hard on any sporting cheat. Their view would be quite extreme, that they should be kicked out forever - If you cheat you’re out,” she said.

“I think they’ve been a little bit misled about the true extent of what’s been going on … But if people have been keeping a close eye and reading between the lines, I think they would realise that this has been going on.”

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